Kanga-screw!

I have nothing to say here.
I just like that picture and wanted it to be somewhere here in my blog.
Go about your regular business. Thank you.

Mr.B

My YouTube Links Repository.

I have a feeling that I'm going to be collecting A LOT of these links to YouTube clips that I want to show to people. So, I'm creating this post. I'll just update it and add more, as I discover them.

(Also, check it out, I've permanently included a link to this post in my Media Section down on the lower left sidebar. So, three months from now when you want to see something that you ran into here, you can find this post easily, without digging through my archives. Enjoy!)

It Had To Be Me.
Phillip Mottaz's 2006 Vidiocy winning Short Film. The ending is BRILLIANT. Look for a brief cameo from Yours Truly as the "Billionaire Philathropist." Brilliant, Just Brilliant!
It Had To Be Me

Tech TV Edison Recording Tube Disaster.
Watch as the guest on Chris Pirillo's old show on Tech TV absolutely destroys a priceless, one of kind artifact. His frustration is actually tangible. Enjoy.
One of a kind item.

Kicked In The Nuts.
My Improv Coach, Bob, shared this with us at DSIF. It's an online video of a fictional, spoof, reality tv show called "Kicked In the Nuts." Watch for the kids tossing baseball together. That's my favorite.
My Friend! My Friend!

Bo Dietl on The Daily Show
Ah, the wonders of You Tube. I can see this clip on The Daily Show, months ago and find it for your enjoyment. Check out the clip of Security Expert, Bo Dietl, as he explains the Terrorists plans for you and your testicles at the 3:38 mark of this clip. I laughed about this for weeks.
Ballbags!

While My Ukele Gently Weeps.
You know what? It's better if I don't tell you. Just check it out on your own and be amazed.
Amazing.

On a Similar Note, here's a Guy Wearing a Suit Covered in Horns, playing classical music by dancing around. He's French!

Some Don Hertzfeldt For You...
This is just a link to a previous blog entry to some other YouTube links. Specifically to two classic Don Hertzfeldt cartoons. "La'Amour" and "Rejected" Sorry to send you deeper down the rabbit hole, I just don't want to keep re-copying the links...
Linky Linky Link

Speaking of Amazing Animation...
Stephanie pointed me towards this. It's a live, sand animation display from the Seoul Animation Festival in 2003. Be sure to watch it with the sound on. It's incredible.
Begin

Wes Anderson's American Express Commercial.
I know. I know. You're thinking, "Why did you link me to an American Express Commercial?" You're just going to have to watch it to find out. If you're a fan, at all, of his movies. You're going to love this.
"Are those my birds?"


2 Michel Gondry Videos Worth Checking Out.
(Pay close attention to the people in the background.)
Kylie Minogue's - Come Into My World

The images in the next clip are neatly synched with the beats of the music. Too cool.
Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar

A dreamy, surreal, single shot slide around an apartment building. Great song! Great Video!
Massive Attack - Protection

Spike Jonze's Gap Ad.
The GAP stores were apparently going to all be made over gradually. This is how the company announced it to the world.
Random Destruction and General Mayhem.

A Spike Jonze Video
This is his video for Elektrobank, a song by The Chemical Brothers. The Gymnast in the video is Sofia Coppola, who later married and then divorced Jonze and eventually directed "Lost in Translation". It's an amazing video and Coppola does so some of the gymnastics in the video, but nothing that's shown at a distance. Wow.
Check it out, man!

A Kid Gets Hit By A Basketball.
Keep your eye on the kid who runs by the bottom of the screen. POW!
Look out, kid!

The Best Batman Movie You Never Saw.
This is a "trailer" for a movie that was never made. It's called "Grayson" and the guy who plays Dick Grayson (aka Robin) wrote and directed it. It's impressive as Hell and just like a normal trailer gives away all the best parts. You can actualy piece together the plot pretty well, from everything that it gives you.
I would've HAPPILY paid my $9 to see this movie. Check it out.
Grayson

The Internet is for Porn.
Hm, not what you think it is, this is actually a fan film that someone threw together. The song "The Internet is for Porn" is from the musical Avenue Q. The video is a well-edited hodgepodge of clips from an online video game, I don't know which one. But it's a lot of fun. And very funny. Check it out.
The Internet is for Porn.

Star Wars Blooper Reel.
Pretty Self Explanatory.
Save Chewie!
also
Star Wars Audition Tapes from SNL.

Darth Vader is a Smartass.
Very clever editing, takes an iconic moment from the Star Wars trilogy and makes a brilliantly funny moment out of it. Bravo.
You should probably click here.

Mr.Show's - Great Seeing You Again, Guy.
Remember that time when you asked me what my favorite Mr. Show sketch was. Yeah, well this was the one I was talking about.
"There he is."

The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.
This is a novelty recording that Leonard "Mr. Spock" Nimoy did of a silly little song called "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins." I guess he was a big Tolkein fan. Rather than mire the video down in a lot of fantasy imagery, the director has very wisely decided to compliment Mr. Nimoys unique vocal style with Go -go dancers and a pleasant day at the beach. The whole thing looks very "community theater", if you ask me.
Hobbits Unite.

William Shatners' "It Was a Very Good Year."
A nice compliment to Nimoys' Bilbo Baggins piece, this is Shatner performing the Sinatra piece on the Dinah Shore show in the 70's. It's from his "monologues as music" years. And it's truly, truly awful.
"When I was seventeen........it was........a very good year!"


William Shatner's Seven
From the Mtv movie awards, a couple of years ago. I think this is Shatners finest work. Look for a cameo from a pre-fame Carmen Electra as the green delivery girl.
WHAT'S IN THE FUCKING BOX?!?

Intro to The Six Million Dollar Man.
Inspired by a recent post, I looked this up. Check out this hot video action!
We Have The Technology.

Intro to Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
Okay, I admit it. I freaking LOVE this Intro Music. It's so Retro-futuristic and definitely firmly rooted in disco. Alas, though, there's no copy of it available for downloading. Check out the teenage boy singing the words to the lyrics at the end of the clip. Far out!!!
The Year is 1987!

Robot Sex from Buck Rogers.
Jesus, this show was terrible. This is a scene set in a bar, where Twiki (whose famous catchphrase was "Beety Beety") meets a female Twiki-type of robot who says....wait for it... "Booty Booty". At the end, he wanders off after her, presumably to bang her behind the robot bar. How did this stuff end up on network television?
"Booty Booty"


More to come, I am sure.

School Days and My First Performance Ever.

Someone over on the Bee Board recently posted about how they performed Neil Diamond's "America" in their elementary school pageants. I did too. I can still remember the more stirring parts of the song and how much I enjoyed standing there on the risers with the other kids, waving my flag as hard as I could. I had a bow tie made out of red crepe paper. The simple pleasures, you know?

(God, wouldn't my job be great if I was just expected to sing in pageants and give it my all and wave a flag on occasion. Also, to keep my hands to myself. I could handle that.)

But those memories of singing my heart out to "America" are memories from Jane Hite Elementary School. There was another elementary school before that one.

St. Matthews Elementary in St. Matthews, KY.


(That's the actual school. Found that pic online.)

My mom and I lived in St. Matthews, right after her divorce from my dad. This had to have been around 1978. As I think about it now, this had to also have been her first apartment all to herself, in her life. That had to have been pretty scary. She was a single mother, recently divorced from my dad and was working her arse off at a veterinarian's office, to help pay for my childhood. Of course, her family were very supportive and helped to raise me and my dad was very proactive in my life, but for five days out of the week, she was my sole parent and guardian.

Later, in the summer before my 2nd or 3rd grade, we moved to Middletown, another suburb of Kentucky and I had some adventures there, but for a while, we lived in St. Matthews. And I attended St. Matthews Elementary School. I have several crazy, random memories of that school. They're fuzzy with age and I'm sure they're all very saturated with pure fiction as well as hard memory, but they're still very real to me. Here are a few that are particularly vivid...

-I remember being sent to the office to get something and finding the teacher across the hall, standing outside her class, very obviously spying on what they did and said, when she was gone. She looked guiltily at me, having been caught spying on her own kids. She quickly ran back into classroom and resumed teaching. I never had her as a teacher, but every time I saw her after that, I thought, "She spies on her students."

-I remember sunny afternoons in the gymnasium, earnestly trying to learn waltzing and country dancing with the other kids. It never occurred to me to cut up and act a fool. I was focused too hard on trying to learn the actual dances.

-I remember the electric excitement of the tornado drills, crouching down with the other kids in the hallways. Being told not to talk, but whispering to each other, none the less. There was always something exciting about every kid in the school being in the hallway at once, whispering to someone next to them.

-I remember taking violin lessons for nearly a full year, but quitting when I learned that they wanted me to play classical music and I wanted to fiddle like Darby O Gill in "Darby O Gill and the Little People." I can still smell the musty smell of my rental violin and the resin that I kept trying to chew. Because they told us not to chew it. It had a medicinal taste.

-I can remember an art project where I attempted to draw two astronauts in space, circling a giant Milky Way candy bar. A pun, you see? I thought this was a hilarious play on words. Everyone else thought that the fat kid was obsessed with candy bars and could probably do with a few less of them.

-I can remember being outside, watching the girls soccer team from the high school next door practice. I was amazed by how fast and smooth they seemed to be. I experienced a yearning then to be with them, to run as fast as they did, that would later, in adulthood take on a definite sexual overtone.

-I remember my menagerie of imaginary friends that I enjoyed for nearly two weeks before I gave up on them entirely. (It was a phase that all the kids were exploring at the time. Once the fad passed, we all moved onto something else, Transformers probably.) I remember that I had nearly two dozen animals friends and that I stood by the front door of the school with the principal, who kindly held the door open for them all to enter. I introduced him to every one of them, "This is Mr. Dadoo. He's a gorilla. This one is Mr. Pawdid. He's a robot. This tiny family of mice are the PeePaws." He said "Good Morning" to every one of them and welcomed them all to the school, enjoying the game as much as I did.
A week later, when I forgot about the imaginary friends, I noted that he was disappointed to only open the door and greet me. I didn't catch that he was disappointed that I'd abandoned our game, until adulthood.

-I remember the day that I had to go to school, but had no clothes. My mom had been stuck on a business trip (she sold industrial wire and cable, at that point) and my grandparents had no school appropriate clothes for me. So, I went to school wearing my sandals, my underwear and my grandfathers t-shirt. My grandmother sewed up the neck a bit, to fit me better and sent me to school that way. A little hippy child, in sandals and a large, white robe. She apologized to me, in the car for having nothing better for me and warned me that the other kids might tease me.
But they didn't.
Every kid I ran into was immediately jealous of my "cool robes." And when they smelled the very clear, Old Spice smell of Grandfather coming off of me, it got even cooler. I walked around the school, proud of my robes and in fact, wore them the rest of the day. And fought to wear them to school the next day, but was sent in my regular clothes, mad as Hell.

-I remember the day that I busted out a plate glass window in one of the classrooms with my bare hands. I was chasing a kid who'd stolen some other kids fancy pop up book. I was playing the hero part and was determined to get the book back. But my new loafers were too slippery and I couldn't make a corner turn quick enough and slid right into a window and busted it out, entirely. Shattered glass everywhere. Amazingly, I wasn't cut in the slightest. But I cried anyways, scared that I would be in trouble for jackassing around.

The memory that I started this whole thing off, though, was from my first childhood pageant. My first speaking line from a play. Any play. I can't remember why the teacher picked me to have the only speaking line for a child my age. Perhaps I was the chattiest child or perhaps because they thought that if they didn't give me something to do, to be preoccupied, I'd knock another window out.

The scene in the show went like this.

The teacher who was narrating was talking about America and some of the freedoms we have and Golly, how great it is to live in America! On the stage already, are 7 posters with a single letter on them, already laid out. At the appointed cue, 7 wee toddlers would come out and kneel behind the posters. At another cue, the kids would lift them in unison and it would spell out "A.M.E.R.I.C.A." And then the narrator would lead us into a rousing rendition of "The National Anthem."

But Wait! Before the song, an unnamed, lovable scamp would run out and say in a lovable way, "But wait! We forgot the most important letter!" and then kneel to raise an eighth, unseen letter. The letter "N", making the word "A.M.E.R.I.C.A.N" and then the people chuckle and applaud the lovable scamp and we launch into an exciting rendition of "The National Anthem" that involved the audience know, caught up in the drama of the moment by the scamp's excitement.

I was that Lovable Scamp.

And that was pretty much the entire moment, except at the critical moment of my performance, I got so excited that I just screamed out one long unknowable pseudo-phrase! "BUTWAITWEFORGOTTHEMOSTIMPORTANTLETTER!" and then smiled proudly at the audience while I revealed the critical "N". ("Check it out, people. Didn't see THIS twisteroo coming, did you?!?") And then they did sing "The National Anthem" with the audience of parents and family members.

After the show, I was so proud, both my mom and my dad made a huge deal about it. In the car ride home, my mom kept asking to hear my line over and over again and I happily obliged her, saying each time with more and more enthusiasm, as we drove home on that warm, summer night. The car windows rolled down to let in the crisp, summer air.

It's now over 25 years later and I'm still hooked on performance of some sort.

Check it out, mom! Did you see me? Did you see me?

Cheers,
Mr. B

Drunk.

I wrote the entirety of this post, minus this introduction, about two weeks ago, after a long night of drinking.

It was a Saturday night, after the March Belmont Burlesque Review (March 26th, to be accurate) and I was dead drunk. It had been a long day and I was drinking on an empty stomach AND was thirsty from a long, hard day and a very physical performance. I think I downed my first cocktail in two drinks. The next two went a little slower, but were just as deadly.

Upon making it home, I found this blog still up and active on my computer from a previous post that I'd edited. I decided to try to post something and see if I couldn't capture what I was feeling and thinking. So, the typos are left in, intentionally. And I've made no effort to edit myself for clarity or dignity. I saved a draft of the post, to peruse later, when i was sober and am just now getting around to posting it. Warts and all.

The picture, of course, was also added later.

There are several things that a person might catch themself thinking as they stand at the intersection of Lawrence and Clark on a Saturday evening, at 4 o clokc in the morning, after a few cocktails too many. Here are some examples...

If you pull your coat collar up and your hat down your ex girlfriend,who lives nearby, could walk right by you and never realize it was you. She's never seen this particular jacket before. That can be your saving grace.

Leaning Nonchelantly against a cemetary wall, when intoxicated is not as easy as you think it would be.

Send her that text message. She will think it is nice and not at all creepy.

One cocktail too many, my friend. That's how we ended up in this mess.

Just start walking, it'll keep you warm and awake. You can catch the bus when it comes, at the nearest bus stop. It'll work, I tell you.

Tunr your Ipod down, rummy. Otherwise, you'll never hear the thugs who plan to mug you.

God the street lights are lovely. Such a bright shade of orange, made even brighter by the crips night and the few too many cocktials. Irving Park is so pretty at 4 in the morning when you've got some John Coltrane to listen to.

Don't send her the text message. She will think it's creepy. And it is. It's nearly 4 in the morning. Who wants to receive a text message at 4 in the morning?

Oooh, there's the diner. I could go for some pancakes. Hmm, but I would be eating alone. And then throwing it up alone, in a few hours. Nope, better to keep walking home.

I love this city. Why did I ever live anywhere else?

Who's idea was it to stop the Brown Line at 2 in the morning? That sounds like a terrible idea, if you ask me. People DOn'T leave the bar at 1:30, thinking, well, that's enough fun for me. Better wander over to the train and get on home. I mean, if they're keeping it running until 2, why not go to 2:30 or 2:45 and keep the drunks from driving home? Everything would be a lot easier if everyone would just let me run things.

Crafty Beaver?!? Heh heh heh.

Soemthing isn't working right here. Either its the ipod or my fingers, but I cant get the volume control to work the way that I want it to. Ill just skip ahead to the next song and hope that its quieter than this one.

I wonder if the people on the bus could tell that I am as drunk as I am? Or maybe just tired. I only closed my eyes for a minute. I hope I didn't snore.

Is there anything as nice as finally making it home after a long commute and kckign ones shoes over into the corner and throwing ones clothes over on the couch and going straight to bed for a long, well-deserved sleep?

Blog Pimp.

Just like a relationship, one of the sure ways to diminish the pleasures of a blog is to talk about it.

All the time.

Which is sort of where I am right now. For the past week I've been a total pimp for this little thing. I've harassed friends and sent the address to this site to people who had expressed no interest in it. I guess I was a little proud of this place. Combine the recent cosmetic changes with the surprisingly high number of posts and I found myself talking about it all the time.

Back in January I swore to myself that I really would throw myself into this without regard for what anyone else would think. And that I wouldn't press it onto people, without their expressing interest.

And for 2.5 months, I did all right.

Last week though, oh boy, I whored this thing out to a ton of people. I guess I really wanted to share this with some folks.

So, I realized this tonight and I'm going to back off a bit. Let's chalk that up a to a small growth spurt and if you're here and you're one of those people that I pushed my blog onto, please forgive the ham-handed pass. I appreciate your being here. And I appreciate your future visits, if they come. I'll try to write something interesting enough to be worth your time and attention.

Something better than this post.

I appreciate your patience.

Cheers,
Mr. B

PS. After this, no more blog talk for a month. At least. Maybe longer.

A Brief Note to a Friend...

Hello M in TX.

I'm glad that W passed on this blog to you. It's been a very long time since we talked about anything. 7 - 8 years, maybe?

Anyways, I'm glad you're around.

We should catch up some time.

Cheers,
Mr.B

Flash Mountain.

Not much to SAY in this post, just the link to offer up and a brief word of explanation.

Apparently, it has become something of a habit to "flash" the cameras at Splash Mountain in Walt Disney World. Ladies take a second before the "big drop" to raise their tops, hoping to capture their bared breasts on the "souvenir photo" that the ride takes. Sometimes, the tops are raised for the ladies, by their male ride companions.

Typically, these pictures are IMMEDIATELY destroyed by Walt Disney World employess. Sometimes they get out.

And here's a link to a site where they got posted, after they got out...

Flash Mountain

I think these pics are Hilarious. Such a strange mix of "I'm genuinely scared/thrilled" and "Hey Everybody, Look at THESE!" I don't understand the impulse of the people in these pics.
But the end result is very, very funny...

Also, momentum sometimes does strange things to the boobs.

Cheers,
Mr. B



(the above link was provided by the good folks over at Snopes.com - a place where you can go to learn the truth about things.)

Thank You, Mr. Knox.

Ladies and Gents,

Mr. Knox, my friend and computer guru, has very kindly redesigned my blog template for me. According to my wishes and his expertise, the Links sections, located to the left are all in a uniform font and size now. For two days, they were an unpleasant mashup of fonts. Entirely due to my ineptitude.

In less that 24 hours, Mr. Knox has swooped in, diagnosed the problem and even created an alternative template for me. I plugged it in and LO and BEHOLD, it looks just like what I wanted it to look like.

<----------- See? So much nicer.

Anyways, things are a little tidier around here and thanks is entirely due to my friend, Mr. Knox. I thought proper notice was due...

Thank you, Mr.Knox.
And Welcome to my Bloggy Blog.

Cheers,
Mr. B

Some Don Hertzfeldt for you...

Yourtube has some Don Hertzfeldt classics available for you. Both are really REALLY wonderful. Check em out, if you've never seen them. And if they links give you trouble, please mention that in the comments section below. They worked fine for me.

Ah, L'Amour

and

Rejected.

I'm still trying to track down a copy of the 2003 Disney/ Salvador Dali animated short film, "Destino". I had the good luck to catch it in the actual theaters, but haven't seen it since then. Let me know if you ever find a copy, won't you?

Cheers,
Mr. B

Worst. Review. Ever.

A few months ago, Mr. Mottaz and I were talking about rough show reviews. He mentioned the one that you about to read as a prime example of "a reviewer REALLY disliking a show and unloading all the one liners that they'd saved up from other shows and unloading them on this one show."

It's as if they'd stored up all of their rage at all of the bad shows that they'd seen and vomitted them up on this show. Which couldn't possibly have been as bad as this reviewer says it was.

(I post this not to criticize the company or it's players, but to illustrate a reviewer unleashing a nuclear salvo on a flatulent chipmunk. If you were in this show, or know someone who was, kindly keep that to yourself.)

THE SHOW'S TITLE WHICH ALLUDED TO THE FACT THAT ONE OF THE COMPANY'S MEMBERS WAS HANDICAPPED.
Some Random Improv/Sketch Group, at Some RandomChicago Theater.

The hint of political incorrectness in the title was about the only comical thing in this sketch-comedy show performed by a cast whose thoroughly inept delivery of poorly scripted material was nothing less than stunning.
Sober opening-night audience members sat slack-jawed in horror at the dismal vista unfolding onstage while their inebriated cohorts mustered only petite chortles and vague beer-soaked hoots.
SRISG failed to present a single original let alone humorous moment in their hour-long performance, which would have ended in street rioting in a more gentlemanly era.
The jokes were either keg-party cutesy (a ghastly medley of 80s car-related songs) or handpicked from a stopped-up toilet--available vaginas, mercurial penises, Jesus inserting a tampon, obese men in pink tutus (an inexcusable bit that nevertheless provides a place in comedy heaven for actor Johnny Improviser, bless his heart).
Sketch comedy often calls for characters to be put into normal situations with abnormal characters or props or vice versa. Here characters were plopped into potentially funny scenarios as if their mere presence were the punch line.
This was not irony, cleverness, or insolence; it was stupidity.
Obviously inexperienced, the cast sometimes delivered lines so faint and muffled it was difficult to catch the jokes. Perhaps a blessing in disguise.--Anonymous Reviewer.

Thanks to Mr. Mottaz for passing this along.

Cheers,
Mr. B

This Potpourri smells like shit!!!

For those of you who post on CIN or follow it's many tiny dramas, a new low was reached today.

You can check it out here:

http://www.chicagoimprov.org/forum/index.php?t=thread&frm_id=30

(Sorry, you'll have to cut and paste it, yourself. I don't want the sites mod to trace your links back to this blog.)

Dale Hilley*, the new owner and moderator and amateur fascist, has established a new Forum for one purpose. - To talk about the things that HE wants to talk about by a SELECT GROUP of posters in THE MANNER that HE wants them discussed. He calls it Potpourri and the only post in the forum right now, lays down his "rules" for the Forum.

(Jesus, in reading the "guidelines", I am suddenly reminded of the cliques in my elementary school, the "Kool Kids Klub" and its mysterious, unknowable methods of admission and guidelines for behavior. Nothing seems to have changed from there to here.)

Dale has railed on and on about how low the quality things are on CIN. It's a theme that he never gets tired of exploring. The diatribes are mind-numbingly consistent. (Autistic children marvel at his consistency.)

And there's nothing wrong with his being a cranky bastard who assumes the authority to tell people what they are doing is wrong. EXCEPT. He then turns around and basically DOES the very things that he rails on. Over and over again.

Idle posting? Check!
Masturbatory Self Interest? Check!
Discussion about Pop Culture with nothing new added? Check!
Random pics posted for obscure reasons? Check!
Posting incessantly? Check!

For a time, I was his whipping boy over there.
His posterboy for what was wrong with the board. And I fought back as hard as I could. God, so much time wasted on that board, debating issues with him.

And then he said something that clicked with me. That showed me the actual drive behind his arguments. Basically, he said...

"I don't want you to post on CIN, dominating the discussion and influencing how people post on the board."

He didn't want that, because he saw that as HIS job.

It was then that I realized that I was dealing with a "Crazy Person". Someone who can't really be blamed for his actions because he couldn't control them. Or understand their motivations. If you were to ask him, he wouldn't remember saying that. He wouldn't understand his own motivations for saying that. He doesn't know himself very well. And he knows his audience even less well.

So, now there's a Forum set up "just for intellectual discourse of an intelligent variety." Bits are welcomed there, but only REALLY FUNNY, INTELLIGENT bits. Which, as Dave has said many times, only a small cadre of his personal friends are capable of constructing or enjoying. In the same original post in the forum, Dave assures us that the moderators of the board are "regular posters who've been around since the early days of CIN" and "not at all who you'd think they were". Which tells me that it's PRECISELY who I think they are and leading the troops is King Shitbird Glorianus, himself.

Nothing has changed in the two months since I left the board.

Dave runs rampant and now has contructed his own personal "green zone" for his elitist friends to masturbate into. He has even laid down some flexible guidelines to justify his future censorships and social abuses.

And he has served up one more heaping reminder that:

You are not good enough.
You are all doing it wrong.
He is right. You are wrong.
He will show you how it should be done.
Everything would be better, if you would just shut up and do what he tells you.

As I said, nothing has changed...

Cheers,
Mr. B

PS. I don't have any illusions that what I did there was important.
I don't think that any of it mattered in the long run. And I only ended up raising my own blood pressure. And in the end, he got what he wanted. I left the board to come start this blog. And he's ran around on the board since then, thumping his chest and bullying anyone that he wanted to. He's the big ape in the monkeyhouse over there. Which was what he always wanted. So, there's no way that I could rationally say that I "won" anything from all of that time spent fighting him.
I just wanted to clarify that. When I say that I used to "actively resist him", it is only a personal point of pride. That, and two bucks will get you a cup of coffee.

*I post his name under a pseudonym because I know for a fact that shitbird Googles himself every two or three days. I don't want it leading him here. I don't want his stink on my blog.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle & Harry Houdini

I just found out, from the magic of the Internet, that Doyle and Houdini were once very close friends.

Doyle, as you may know, was the author who chronicled the exploits of Sherlock Holmes.
Houdini was the little Jewish immigrant who was the foremost practioner of Escapism.

The breaking point of their friendship was their absolutely opposite views of the Spiritual world. Doyle believed and believed hard. Houdini was a noted skeptic. Apparently, their debates were both public and private and wildly entertaining to the world's audience.

To learn more about their friendship gone sour, check out this link.

http://www.prairieghosts.com/doyle_houdini.html

Here's a picture of the two of them together, vacationing in Atlantic City in 1922:



Fascinating. I would've never imagined them knowing each other, much less, having an intense friendship that had soured, so publicly. How interesting.

Cheers,
Mr. B

// Doors.

"He walked through their old house alone, quietly closing the doors.

Inside the rooms, he could hear the slight echoes of the pleasurable times past, each one as whispy as a breath. He took a moment, to listen and mark the memory, before he slowly, reverently, permanently, closed the doors.

It never ocurred to him to ask if he was acting rashly or prematurely.

It never ocurred to him to even consider the possibility that someday, far ahead of him, he or someone close to him, might want to open them up again. He didn't anticipate that anyone would be permitted the access to his old home, ever again. How would they ever get close enough to touch his heart?

Instead, he slowly closed off the doors where she used to live and play and firmly locked them shut with the finality of an Act Done For The Last Time.

For himself, he left only the meager quarters that he needed to live in. A small, sparse room with its' humble three shelf library in the corner and a single bed. The tiny kitchenette with a small window that afforded a little light and a view of a bare, brick wall. The butlers pantry, where the foodstuffs were stored. And the small water closet, where he sat folded up and soaked in the cold, claw-foot tub, shivering.

This was the only bit of real estate that he permitted for himself. Its sparcity reflected his own resignation. It was all that he felt he deserved.

This pale, gaunt, ghost of a man, wordlessly wandered the hallways of his ancient Victorian home, lingering sadly at the many doors before he closed them off, one at a time.

Never to open them again."

The Superman Tribute Video.

John Kramer sent this link to me. It's a video tribute to all the various incarnations of Superman.

The Black and White Kirk Alyn Serials.
The George Reeves Superman
The Fliescher Superman Cartoons.
The Adventures of Lois and Clark.
Christopher Reeve.
Smallville.
and
The Animated Series.

They're all very well represented in this clip. Which is set to "Five for Fighting's" song about Superman. "It's not easy."

Almost more than the current trailer that is floating around, this makes me very excited that there is a new, bells and whistles, Bryan Singer-directed Superman movie coming out this year.

Anyways, check this video out. It's pretty great.

Cheers,
Mr. B

http://www.rclabaugh.com/superman/supervid_lrg.html

Casual Friday.

I just got back from a disciplinary meeting with our Human Resources Person.

Apparently, there were some "Anonymous Complaints" about my outfit for the office's Casual Friday. I don't believe her. I think SHE didn't like my outfit and decided to do something about it. Which is an abuse of power, if you ask me.

All this work for nothing.

I wish they would print clear guidelines about this sort of thing in the company manual. THIS is wrong, but Elliot's pastel polo shirt is okay?!?

Sometimes I think they're actually OUT to crush my Creative Instincts.

Ah well. At least I have the pictures to comfort me...




















(VISIBLE PENIS WARNING: And here, Dear Reader, is where I warn you that the upcoming images are not workplace appropriate. Wait until you get home to check them out. You can thank me later.)










Still with me?
Okay. You've been warned.















Watch out for Solar Flares!!!





Don't ask me where I got them. The answer was, and always will be, the Internet.
I don't know who that guy is.
Or why he agreed to have that done to him.
Once again, this Cavalcade of Hilarity comes from the Amazing Depths of the "Found this on Google, while searching for something completely unrelated, with Safe Search Off" file.

My Friend's Friend's Right Breast...

A good friend of mine has a girlfriend who had a cameo part in a movie last year.

In her scene, she plays a girl who has sex with the lead character. In the scene, (which I haven't seen yet) apparently her right breast pops free and makes a prolonged appearance in the scene. Sort of the third character in the scene. I think she has lines, along the whole "Fuck me, buddy!" and "Let's keep on fuckin'" and "Boy, we sure are fuckin' now" line. No word on what the breast says, if anything.

(Yes, I'm being intentionally vague about all of this. If you know the deets, then you can fill in the blanks yourself. If not, then trust me in that it's best that I leave this lovely girl's identity and breast, unrevealed.)

Now, I've never met this young lady in real life.

And I haven't seen her movie yet.

And yet, I can go to IMDB, look her name up and Google it and three links down, is her Mr. Skin page, with four pics taken from the movie, pasted in a lovely, montage of her uni-boobed cameo scene. I don't think her face is visible in the scene, but her great, beautiful right breast certainly is.

In fact, with a little bit of searching, I could even download her scene and JUST her scene (all 15 seconds of it) to my home computer. (Which reminds me, I should do that when I get home tonight.)

And that strikes me as odd, Dear Reader.

To have seen a great swarth of a woman's private area, which has been enjoyed by moviegoers around the world, mind you. And yet, the possesor of this fine, mammarian orb is only a phone call away.

Not that I would have anything to say beyond...

"Hey, I Googled your Boob at work the other day."

Ha ha ha!

Now, there's a sentance I've never used before...

Cheers,
Mr. B

V for Vendetta: A Review.

Saw this posted over on AICN by "Merrick". I like it. It's a concise, brief, review of the movie, touching upon the politics that the film addresses. If you know nothing about the book or the film, then this review would serve as a very nice introduction, indeed.

Enjoy...

A few weeks ago, the British House of Commons passed a law banning the “glorification” of terrorism. This proposal is viewed as frighteningly broad, as the word “glorification” could have many interpretations and definitions. Obviously, this lack of clarity brings with it the potential for tremendous abuse of authority.

The timing of this measure is grimly ironic given the impending release of V FOR VENDETTA, an incendiary film that passionately renounces such lawmaking, and constantly reminds us that the obliteration of freedom – both personal and broad – tends to start in simple, subtle, and apparently well-intended ways.

At its heart, V FOR VENDETTA is not a terribly complicated story. It’s the journey of three characters. One towards vengeance, one towards awakening, as the third tries to understand the slipstream of destruction left in their wake – ultimately finding himself enlightened by the journeys of the other two. Save for a few twists and turns (which aren’t particularly twisty or turny), V’s plot is so simple that it hardly merits regurgitation:

In a totalitarian Britain, where asking questions equals dissent & citizenry/press know that their government has over-consolidated its power, an “every person” (Natalie Portman’s Evey) chances into a firestorm of dissidence unleashed by a man called “V” (voiced and performed by Hugo Weaving, although he is never seen.) Evey’s eyes are slowly opened to the truth about, and the dangers of, power. How easily it can be attained, and how fully it can misused. More importantly, she learns that the most potent word that can ever be spoken by anyone, anywhere, is a simple word with only two letters: “No.”

The movie is almost ridiculous in its simplistic structure. But “structure” isn’t what V FOR VENDETTA is about. It’s about essence, and meaning. V is very much an allegory for human events: The Nazis of yesterday, the insidious dangers facing our world today, and what our failure to recognize such patterns means for the world of tomorrow. Notions like the United States’ Patriot Act, Britain’s increased video surveillance of motorized traffic, America’s pre-knowledge of (and possible inaction towards) 9/11, and the movement to dilute the legal sanctity of homosexual relationships are all pointedly evoked. More subtle, but equally dangerous, trends are also touched upon (“If you’re not for the war in Iraq, then you don’t love our country!”); their dangers are vividly (and viscerally) illustrated here.

V FOR VENDETTA is far from perfect. The pacing in the film’s final quarter feels decidedly less urgent than the material that came before it, and the movie leaves are about ten jillion questions unanswered – some of which are better left unanswered. Despite such quirky shortcomings, V FOR VENDETTA is a frequently potent, consistently stirring film whose greatest impact rises not from the story it’s actually telling, but in its relationship to the world we live in. In the reality V FOR VENDETTA urges us to create, the film itself would probably never exist – because it would not need to exist. If only we were there, and if only that were so.

But in the here and now, V is a constantly chilling and sometimes humbling wake-up call. A rather brilliantly considered one at that: It’s certainly possible to argue the artistic merits of the film. But if one argues what the film is saying, then we effectively becoming one of the very people the film is warning us against…much like the dynamic forcibly created by V himself.

It’s challenging to accept that the ideas worth dying for are not always the ideas our governments tell us are worth dying for. It’s even more uncomfortable to swallow the notion that we, as a populous, are responsible for the actions of our government simply because we put The Powers That Be in office. “If you want to see who is responsible…” intones V, “Look no further than a mirror.”

After the movie, I looked in the mirror. I’m not sure I liked the person I saw – as a citizen, or as a father. This being said, my twelve year old understood this movie. He felt it. He got it.
Maybe I didn’t do such a bad job after all. And, maybe there’s hope for us yet…


Yes, I am very excited to see this film translated to the big screen, blood, roses, dominoes and masks.

Cheers,
Mr. B




Also, please note the National Party's Slogan on the wall behind "V". The word, that his hand is obsuring, is "FAITH". In "V"s world, the ruling party uses a national religion to unify their supporters. Who does THAT remind you of?

"There be High Winds Today, Aye!"

The Mighty Lake Michigan is tearing up to give us a proper squall today. The winds are whipping through the canyons of the city like they're late to an Irishman's wake. (And thereby going to miss all the free licquor which will be drunk by the Irishman's mourning family. An old turn of phrase. Which I just made up.) Things are SO BAD, that parts of Evanston (the town) have been closed, altogether. Construction workers there, were injured, when the wind collapsed their work site. Flights have been cancelled and delayed into O'Hare and Midway because of the wind.

Here, a little closer to home, the wind has begun to show itself as well...

The building that I work in has begun sway like a drunkard. If you close your eyes, you can actually feel the sway happening.

On top of that, the creaking and popping from the windows of the office are loud, loud, LOUD!

If I look through my co-workers office, I can see the edge of a distant office building, sway in and out of the edge of his window frame. I can actually SEE the movement of this building, in the high wind.

I'm not worried, though. I don't fret that the building will collapse into a massive pile of rubble. Because the windows aren't breaking. Or cracking. You see, the building is covered by a tight skin of plate glass windows. And before the pressure gets so high that there's a possibility of collapse, the "skin" of windows will stretch beyond the breaking point.

When I hear pops and cracks from the glass shattering around my office or on other floors, Well, time to pack it up and hoof it down 23 flights of stairs and hope that I beat the oncoming disaster.

Until then, I am content to live and work in this galleon ship, of a building. And her creaks and pops will remind me that she's built well and can survive a high, Lake Michigan wind...

Cheers,
Mr. B

PS. One more thing. If I'm wrong and I die in a building collapse, I give my friends permission to use this blog entry as ironic observation, for submission to the local papers. I ask only that they preface my credit with the following titles "Brilliant Writer and Lover of Many Womens, Chris Biddle." I don't think anyone will mind the small, white lie, after my unfortunate death.

News Flash! Man wrestles Bear. Bear wins!!

Congrats to AOL News for my new favorite news headline, EVER! : "Man Wrestles Bear, Loses."

Here's the video link. Check it out before it expires.

http://us.video.aol.com/video.index.adp?mode=2&guideContext=65.73&pmmsid=1477220

A man, wrestling a bear. Wonderful.

Truly, we live in an Age of Miracles.

COB out...






PS. Can someone tell me WHY this isn't a televised LIVE event on ESPN? I would DVR "Bear Wrestling" over "Another Boring Ass College Basketball Game" any day!!!

The Cheerleader Who Fell To Earth.

My apologies to David Bowie for that entry title.

So, last week, an 18 year old cheerleader from SIU fell 15 feet from a Cheerleading pyramid and onto her head, during a game.

Onto.
Her.
Head.

From 15 feet up.

Ouch.

Here's a brief article giving out the pertinent details.

Injured Illinois cheerleader who cheered from gurney worried accident might distract from game

The Associated Press
Published March 8, 2006, 7:25 AM CST

NEW YORK -- A cheerleader who continued to cheer for her team from a gurney despite tumbling 15 feet onto her head said Wednesday she was worried the accident would distract from the basketball game.

"My biggest concern was that I didn't want my squad to be distracted _ so that they could continue cheering on the team—and I didn't want my team to be distracted from winning the game," Kristi Yamaoka, 18, told NBC's "Today" show.

Yamaoka, a Southern Illinois University sophomore from Springfield, Ill., suffered a concussion, a spinal fracture and a bruised lung when she lost her balance atop a human pyramid during a time-out in Sunday's game against Bradley.

She drew national attention as she was wheeled off the court. When the pep band fired up the school's fight song "Go Southern Go," Yamaoka gave a two-handed thumbs up from the gurney, then moved her arms—the only things not strapped down—in time to the music and cheered.

"I'm still a cheerleader—on a stretcher or not," Yamaoka told the "Today" show while wearing a neck brace and her cheerleading uniform. "So as soon as I heard that fight song, I knew my job and just started to do my thing."

Following Yamaoka's accident, the Missouri Valley Conference barred certain cheerleading stunts during this week's women's basketball tournament. Cheerleaders may not be launched or tossed and may not take part in formations higher than two levels during the tournament.

And here's a picture of the Brave Little Cheerleader, as she was carted away by the EMS technicians. Please note that even though 90 percent of her body is secured to the stretcher, her little arms are in full cheer mode. She's cheering her little heart out and I am to understand that got a standing ovation from the attending audience. Please note that EMS worker appreciates little Kristi's pep.






"I'm still a cheerleader—on a stretcher or not,"







Okay, let's be honest here. That looks a little silly, doesn't it? The video that is available, which you can Google for yourself, doesn't look much better. I watched it and thought, "Wow, a concussion makes you want to keep on cheering. She must've been on some truly superlative painkillers. That or there is a Code of Honor for cheerleaders that I simply do not appreciate. Perhaps they think that the cheers that they have a deeper commitment to the game than I do. Perhaps they take that stuff very, very seriously. God Bless their peppy little hearts."

Clearly "Cheering" is very important to this girl. So much so, that even after sustaining a rather serious head injury, she feels compelled to keep up the show for her audience.

Because she was afraid it would affect the game...

(Which would be the first time in recorded history that a cheerleader actually affected the outcome of a sport game. At all. Ever. Period.)

I tried to think of whether there is anything that I enjoy doing so much that I would involve my unsecured arms to continue the activity after taking a serious blow to the head from a very high fall. What means that much to me, that I would HAVE TO keep it up, as I was carried away? Why wouldn't I just take a pain killer and lie there, praying for a merciful death?

The only thing I can think of, is to "pat myself down, if I suspected that I was on fire."

Other than that, knock my ass out. Give me lots of drugs. Let someone else keep the Cheer alive.

COB out...

PS. Ms. Yamaoka made a full recovery and is up and about, in her neckbrace. She won't be cheering anymore, but she is alive and mobile and if she's smart, avoiding place that don't have proper handrails installed. So, there's a happy ending to this story, after all.

PSS. Do yourself a favor and wait until you go home to Google pictures of "Cheerleader" with your Safe Search off. So many blowjobs. So much anal sex. A guy could be sifting through that stuff for hours.

V for Vendetta. (the artwork)

So, next week, on March 17th, "V for Vendetta: the movie" opens on IMAX and other screens.

The movie is based upon a graphic novel written by an exceptionally smart author, Alan Moore. It's a very densly plotted comic-book story about a terrorist "V" who takes England back from the group of extreme, right wing fascists who've taken over England in the 1980's. He systematically dismantles their propaganda machines, their intrusive and constant surveillance and even blows Big Ben up. (I guess he hates clocks, too.)

It's an angry, angry book that Moore originally intended as a sharply barbed polemnic, fired directly at Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Even he, in his pessimistic imagination could not imagine the world that we actually live in, in today's US. (His book has people living with their phones always being tapped and having homosexuals and minorities so hated that they're literally shipped off to pseudo concentration camps.)

Very powerful stuff.

And it's very clearly a urgent cry for the radical that lies inside all of us, to stand up and take action (yes, even violent action) against fascist governments. Even ones that claim to be a democracy.

It speaks to my Inner Anarchist.

I hear the movie is devastatingly powerful and keeps to this "Call to Arms" theme. As in the book, "V"s true identity is never revealed. Which is, I think, a smart move on the movie producers part.

Another smart move is their movie posters. They're intentionally designed to mimic the art styles of other radical, anarchistic poster art from around the world. They're very striking. Very powerful. Very evocative. Very clearly political. Each one a lovely "Call to Arms" (Or yes, A Call to See a Movie.)

I love them.

And I'm reprinting them here for you to enjoy too...

March 17. Go see that movie. You can thank me, later.

COB out...

Poster #1
























Poster #2
























Poster #3
























Poster #4

Cog.

I meant to post this a few weeks ago, but of course, I forgot to do so...

This is a link to the Honda Accord "Cog" commercial. It's nothing less than amazing. One long continuous shot of the parts from a Honda Accord engaging in some sort of Rube Golbergian process, all on order to release a fully functional Honda Accord and an advertising banner.

No CGI.
One take.
Days to set it up.
I think they had 4 takes to get it right. The only time it worked, is the video that you are about to see.

Enjoy.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/flash/honda-ad.html

Live Strong!

You know...

I don't have a problem with you buying cigarettes.
I also don't really have a problem with you harassing the clerk because they don't have your favorite brand in stock.
And normally, I wouldn't have a problem with how you choose to express yourself.

However...

If you are a young, male Lincoln Square hipster, harassing the CVS clerk about how they're out of your favorite brand of smokes and you're very clearly wearing one of those yellow, Lance Armstrong, "Let's all Beat Cancer Together While We Live Strong" Bracelets, then you are a tool.

It would be equivalent to wearing one of those red, AIDS-awareness ribbons around your dong while you indescriminately screw heavy drug users, prostitutes and homeless people without wearing a condom.

Fucking irony, man...

Sometimes, the things you wear say a lot more about you, than you intend them to...

Live Strong, Dear Reader, Live Strong.

COB out...

Scary Feeling: The Aftermath.

24 hours later and I still have a job.

I left my boss alone all morning long. Giving him extra "cool down" time.
I was thinking, as I rode the train in, though, "Today's your last day, boyo. You're getting the pink slip at the morning meeting. Or shortly thereafter."

So, I worked hard to get as much done as I possibly could, before I was fired.

Instead, five minutes before the meeting, I heard him walk up behind me in my cubicle. He placed both of his hands on my shoulders, in a friendly gesture and said, "Hey, listen, I'm sorry about yesterday. Are you okay?" I turned to him and smiled and said, "Yes, I am. I'm sorry about my screwup. Lesson learned, okay?" "Okay", he said and he bounced off to gather more people for the meeting. Clearly in a lighter mood than he was the day before.

And so I get to keep my job. And he need never know that I'd relocated all my workspace possessions into a single, pathetic bankers box.

I like my boss. I really do. And I appreciate that he's a human being. And sometimes, he might screw up a bit and come down on me pretty hard for something, but he's not unfair and he doesn't pout and he lets things like that go. I appreciate that he offers me the same consideration when I screw up. And brother, I pull some boners too, sometimes.

So, a huge burden is lifted. I guess I'll unpack my stuff a little bit and get back to the business of my company's business. I might even go out and buy myself a Celebratory DVD or something. I think I've earned it. And there's the upcoming Lunch Bunch gathering in thirty minutes and that makes every Friday into a Funday.

So, yeah, crisis averted.
Employment Secured.
Understanding Achieved.

And we move on from here...

COB out...

Stephen Colbert NAILS Arianna Huffington on live television!!!

Not what you think, Dear Reader...

Huffington was on The Colbert Report on Wed. March 01, 2006. And it was one of the funniest interviews I've ever seen on the show. The first half is only so-so. But the last half is genuinely funny. Colbert hits a stride that is exceptionally funny. I particularly like when Colbert urges Huffington "Keep going. We stopped taping, like, 3 minutes ago." and everything that follows that. You can tell that he likes her and is really playing with her.

Check it out at this link...

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/03/02.html#a7366

Really funny stuff.

And while you are at it, do yourself a favor and head over to Arianna's blogsite...

www.huffingtonpost.com

Always some interesting stuff to see there. A nice mix of the wacky worlds of politics and fame. If you hurry, you can catch poor, neglected Lindsay Lohan's nipple slip.

You're welcome.

COB out...

Scary Feeling.

I've just spent the last hour, cleaning out my desk, throwing away birthday cards and personal items and emailing personal documents on my computer to my home email address.

I am anticipating that I am going to be fired tomorrow.

For a small fuckup, shipping 5 documents instead of 6, to a company in St. Louis which is considering us for a business proposal. I mis-read a written instruction of "ship original + 5 copies" against a verbal instruction of "I've made one of them for you" and made 4 copies to go with the original. 5 total. Instead of 5 copies and 1 original.

And it all plays into my bosses favorite theme of, "YOU don't pay attention to details and screw up by assuming that you know what you're doing, when you don't. And you don't ask for clarification when you don't understand something."

The thing is...

I DO pay attention to details. I try my damnest to pay attention to details. it's just that hastily written instructions on a Post It note sometimes aren't all that clear. And when I have a phone conversation after I read a Post It Note instruction, I assume what was said is the final authority.

And yes, when I think I understand something, Of course, I am going to proceed forward and get it done. Why wouldn't I? Why would I keep second guessing myself, when to me, the instructions are clear.

And Finally, how can I ask to clarify something that I think I understand? How can I ask for information that I don't have, if I don't know that I don't have it? Who does that?

God, he was SOOOOOOOOOO angry with me about this. When I tried to understand to explain, he just told me to "shut the fuck up" and that I was going to have to take an immediate flight to St. Louis to rectify this fuckup. This latest fuckup. As in, one in a long series of...

Which is a terrible place to work. Where someone is already starting with the assumption that a fuckup is GOING to happen. He's only waiting around for WHEN it's going to happen.

I threw away 2 years of birthday cards. 2 years of Admin Assistant Day cards. a nice note from a company that thanked me for tracking down a check that they'd accidentally sent me. I collected all the books that I've read on lunch breaks into a single box. All of my private documents are in a single folder, ready to pack up. From my computer, I've emailed myself copies of Playground Incubator documents, a folder of electro-pictures of the last girl that I loved, the outline for the childrens book that I want to write, pictures of my improv team, a collection of interesting articles that I've seen on CIN, about improv. A belt. A calendar.

Everything is collected up or deleted or thrown away. I can be fired tomorrow at the start or end of the day and pick up a box and a folder and walk out the door, leaving no trace behind.

I'm truly heartbroken. This wasn't how I wanted to end my career here. Or anywhere for that matter.

I wish I'd seen this coming...

COB out...

THE LIFE AQUATIC studio sessions featuring Seu Jorge

Hey, I wanted to draw your attention to this album. This is what I've been listening to, since I got back from DSIF.
It's a series of recordings of Seu Jorge, who did all of the Bowie covers for The Life Aquatic movie. It has studio recordings of some of the same songs (Starman, Life on Mars) and adds some new ones (Suffragette City, Queen Bitch, Changes).

If you liked the Seu Jorge tracks from the original soundtrack, you'll want to get this. It's more of the same.
If you didn't really care for the Seu Jorge tracks from the original soundtrack, you'll want to avoid this. It's more of the same.

Thanks to Master Bob Ladewig for pointing it out to me.

Cheers all,
COB

My SIMS-sperience.

Over on CIN, someone mentioned The Sims and it reminded me of when I used to play it. Some amusing things happened and I wanted to capture them here before I forget about them.

I played The Sims back in 2002 & 2003, when I lived with four other dudes over on Ashland St. My roommate, Reuben, had a swank ass computer that he would frequently download huge games and their expansion packs onto. The rest of us, used that communal computer and played the game along with him. So, it was his whim that purchased The Sims, but we all played it.

Rather than create different games for ourselves, we all played on the same shared game and kept updating things. We all seemed to have our own niche in the game. My roommate, Ron, would surf the net for customized furniture and skins. (Like the R2D2 Mini-fridge and skins of Batman and Spiderman.) Corey was big into building houses and decorating them. He discovered how to "cheat" and give yourself unlimited funds for building anything that we wanted. And I would help decorate the buildings and look after the characters needs.

It was Ron's idea to build an exact duplicate of our house in the game. It was Corey's idea to build duplicates of ourselves and try to customize them to our personality. And it was Reubens idea to maintain them, getting jobs that matched our personalities. (He was a Sports Instructor. I was a Bank Thief.)

One night, late at night, when I was playing the game alone, in an empty house, I decided to try an experiment. I'd long since learned that a dedicated player could force a romance on a these tiny pixelated characters. Conversation would lead to a hug and then to backrubs and then to kisses, which lead to making out and then a romp in the heart-shaped hottub and then to a bed romp and marriage and immediately thereafter, a child.

I wondered, could similar results be achieved between two characters of the same gender?
Does The Sims world allow for gay relationships?

I had to find out.

I picked SIMS Ron and SIMS Corey as my guinea pigs for the experiment. (SIMS Reuben was at work and there's no way I was going to "gay up", little SIMS Me.) SIMS Ron was busy playing on the computer and SIMS Corey had just finished eating his meal. I commanded him to go "chat" with SIMS Ron. At first, SIMS Ron was reluctant, he wanted to play his computer, after all. But with a little provoking, he forgot his hesitation and they were soon busy having a little chat about movie reels and airplanes. Turns out, they had a lot in common.

That was as far as I got with the experiment in that first week. Each time I would play after that, I would work on the "secret project" again. I'd segregate those two from the other members of the SIMS house and have them spend time talking, dancing at the jukebox and playing chess with on another. Their "happiness" meters would skyrocket anytime they were around each other. A crush was developing.

Within a week, "hug" was an offer in their list of possible social interractions. So, they would usually end each "visit" with a nice hug together.

A week or so later, they went out on a SIMS date together, into town. They ate dinner at a fancy retaurant together and fed Coy fishes in the park and even shopped for pajamas for each other. Eventually, they settled for matching, Hugh Hefner-style red silk robes. I imagine the silk must've felt sheer and sensual on their little SIMS bodies.

At one point, Reuben came home and almost caught me working on my experiment. He laughed to see SIMS Ron and SIMS Corey sitting in the backyard, blowing bubbles together in the bubble houka. I played it off as social time. Reuben asked what SIMS Him was doing and was very happy to show him that he was in the tv room, watching cartoons and laughing his fool head off. My project went undetected.

The rest of that summer, I continued to explore SIMS Corey and SIMS Rons tender feelings for one another. They often went hot tubbing together. Lazy afternoon swims in the pool area. They loved the hot pink speedos I bought for them. I installed a porch swing out back for them and they would sit together, watching the sun set and waiting for the dancing bear to come and dig through their garbage. They'd run inside, screaming in fear and hug each other comically, like Shaggy and Scooby did.

The Actual Corey and Actual Ron noticed the subtle changes to their characters too. The pajamas were immediately noticed and I took credit for that. I said that I was buying them for everyone. So we could all "look like Hef". And indeed, SIMS Reuben and SIMS Me got similar pairs, just not in the sensuous red of the lovers matching ensembles.

They also noted that their characters had become "Best Friends" in the game and were seemingly inseparable from each other. If one of their characters made a meal, the other one would come eat with them. And they spent many happy hours, watching tv together. They were also individually drawn to the porch swing for some reason, but the players would rarely make use of it. There was some joking around when the "smiley face" next to each others icon changed to a "heart", indicating the shift from friendship to love. Nobody suspected that someone else was driving their characters towards a date with gay destiny.

As their relationship progressed, new interraction options would pop up between them. Instead of "Make a puppet show" or "Juggle", they could "look longingly at [SIMS Corey]", "Massage", "Hold Hands" and "Long Hug." It was a big day, when "Kiss" came up as an option between them. The first advance was clumsy and ill-received.

The boys had just finished painting a picture and playing their grand pianos, when SIMS Corey had the idea to kiss SIMS Ron. He put down his paintbrush and went over to SIMS Ron and waited for him to finish his rousing classical music piece on the piano. SIMS Ron stopped playing and stood up to see what SIMS Corey wanted. SIMS Corey reached forward with arms and mouth, puckered. SIMS Ron shook his head "no" and verbally said "uh uh" and even slapped poor SIMS Corey. As a final sign of his contempt, he went back to the piano playing. SIMS Corey used the bathroom and ordered a pizza, drowning his sorrow as so many of us have done before. With food.

The next kiss, though, was magical. The boys had finished their dinner together. SIMS Corey had loosened SIMS Ron up with the gifts of flowers and chocolates. (I had a ring ready, in case the time was right.) They had cocktails from the bar together and slow danced by the jukebox. At one point SIMS Me came home and passed right by the happy couple, unaware of the budding romance. I'd had a hard day cracking safes and breaking into people's homes.

The song ended and the boys parted ways, I clicked on them to make them dance again and saw that SIMS Ron now offered "Long Kiss" as an option. I selected it and watched as the cyber versions of two of my closest friends entertwined and began a long, slow deep french kiss. I laughed outloud, so hard that I nearly knocked my soft drink all over the computer. I selected "Long Kiss" three more times and then stood up to laugh and dance about, as they continued their explorations online. The murmurs of passion came through the speakers audibly and I had to control myself from yelling, I was so happy! In my revelry, I was careful NOT to wake my roommates, I didn't want them to know what shenanigans I'd pulled in game.

Later that night, after skipping work together and making out frequently in the hot tub, SIMS Corey proposed marriage to SIMS Ron. SIMS Ron accepted and a small ceremony was had in our living room. A SIMS minister arrived and so did their SIMS roommates. Also in attendance at the wedding: Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Batman (with no cape), Superman (again, no cape), A Naked version of George W. Bush, A viking, the cheerleading squad that lived next door, Jay and Silent Bob and two ninjas that no one remembered adding to the game. Also our Robot Manservant was there, serving punch and cleaning up empty plates. A tasteful jumped out of a cake. SIMS Me played guitar and everyone danced the night away. You couldn't ask for a happier ceremony.

After the party, the happy couple went upstairs to SIMS Ron's bedroom to consumate the marriage. I commanded them to "Make Love" over and over again. So many times. I walked away, mid coitus, to prepare some Hot Pockets in the kitchen. When I came back, SIMS Corey was bringing SIMS Ron a towel from the bathroom. They were both nude, but their tiny genitals were blurred out.

A happy union was achieved.

After I got them married and fucking, I honestly lost interest in the project. That was the goal... to get them together. I didn't have the energy or interest to maintain such a taxing relationship. In many ways, their marriage couldn't have lasted, they were discovered by their real life counterparts, the next week.

It was Ron who discovered what was going on. He sat down to play the game and was shocked and surprised to find the SIMS version of himself climbing into bed and kissing SIMS Corey. Any effort to separate the two and have them sleep in their separate beds frustrated both SIMS characters. Lots of stamping feet and yelling and cussing up at us, from the screen. The two characters thought about each other, constantly. And given the chance would hug and kiss and go to bed with one another.

I can still remember hearing Ron yell, through the house, "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THE SIMS VERSIONS OF US?!? ARE ME AND COREY MARRIED?!?" Corey came running through the house to see what was happening.

I explained to them what had happened and told them the whole story. Luckily, I still had the screenshots I'd taken during their brief love affair. They laughed, but were also outraged. The pictures of their actual lovemaking weren't so damning, all you could see was rumpled blankets. But the pictures of them kissing frequently were too much to bear. As were the backrubs.

While Corey punched me and held me down, in real life, Ron made SIMS Me quit my sexy job as a Notorious Crime Boss and made me parade around in a bra and panties. He holed SIMS Ron and SIMS Corey up into rooms of their house that had no windows or doors and set them on fire. Both of them died horrible, agonizing, panicked deaths in a matter of seconds. The fire spread and the entire house was consumed. SIMS Me died on the toilet, panties around my ankles. Only SIMS Reuben, who was busy at work, playing at Wimbledon, survived the conflagration. To ensure the damage was done, Ron saved the games progress and killed 2/3rds of our entire households. A swift and terrible retribution against his SIMS characters brief dalliance with homosexuality.

If I were a deeper person, I would draw parallels here to the real world.

So, we all built separate neighborhoods, after that. Reuben kept the original neighborhood. He hastily built a large home for the little SIMS version of himself. Occasionally, in his swank new mansion, you'd see ghost versions of SIMS Ron, SIMS Corey and SIMS Me appear. My large, white bra was visible, even in the afterlife.

I quit playing The Sims shortly after the "Valentines Gay Massacre", which actually happened the late summer. I moved on to Rollercoaster Tycoon, where a bold explorer and innovator could design award winning rollercoasters, without offending someone else's deeply seated homophobia.

Still, it was a crazy summer, playing matchmaker (and in some cases, MatchEnforcer) for my little cyber friends. We learned a lot, that summer...

COB out...

Unicorned!

Yes, there is apparently TOO MUCH that can be divulged, early in a relationship.

and

No, I will not have sex with you when you are wearing that thing.




















Found that picture on the web, searching for something else. Granted, it's a costume for a theatrical production but I didn't know that when I first saw it.

And, of course, my second thought was, "That bitch is into some freaky shit. And I would have to really REALLY love her, not to judge her for that." Truth be told, I might just judge her anyways.

Cheers,
COB out...